In 2006, Hance was chosen as the third chancellor to succeed David Smith as the chancellor of the Texas Tech University System in Lubbock. He is taking a leave of absence from his Austin law firm Hance Scarborough, LLP but continues to sit on profit and nonprofit boards and commissions while at the helm of Texas Tech. The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal quoted Texas Tech board chairman Rick Francis:

The regents believed Hance could further the goals that we had for our chancellor, in terms of energizing our alumni, and those legislators in both Austin and Washington, D.C., and provide the vision that we need for the future.

He later attended the University of Texas School of Law. During his time as a law student, he was the Student Bar Association President and chosen as recipient of the Counsel Award. After law school, he was admitted to the Texas bar and in 1968 became a practicing attorney in Lubbock. During this period, he was also a law professor at Texas Tech from 1968 until 1973.

In 1974, Hance ran for the Texas Senate and defeated incumbent H.J. "Doc" Blanchard in the 1974 primary. His campaign at the beginning seemed doomed to failure, but Hance quickly made connection with voters in the sprawling West Texas district.

He served in the state senate from 1975 to 1979. After winning the 1978 Democratic primary nomination for the Lubbock-based 19th Congressional District, he defeated the Republican nominee George W. Bush of Midland. The seat, which was based in Lubbock, had been held since inception by popular Democrat George H. Mahon, long-time chairman of the House Appropriations Committee (the 19th included most of the Permian Basin at the time). Bush won the Republican nomination in a hard-fought but low-turnout runoff primary against the 1976 party nominee, Jim Reese, former mayor of Odessa in Ector County.

As a Democratic member of Congress during 1979–1985, Hance was a member of the "boll-weevil" conservatives. As such, he became one of President Ronald Reagan's allies and carried his tax-cut, the nation's largest tax cut, in 1981.

The 19th Congressional District had long been one of the more conservative areas of Texas (it hasn't supported a Democrat for president since 1964). Although the 19th had begun voting in landslides for Republicans at the national level, conservative Democrats continued to represent much of the region at the state level until 1994. Hance claimed Bush was "not a real Texan" because of his privileged upbringing and Yale education. Hance won by seven points—the only time that the future 43rd President of the United States was ever defeated in an election.

Hance was reelected two times. His voting record was very conservative even by Texas Democratic standards; he compiled a lifetime rating of 72 from the American Conservative Union. He did not run for a fourth term in 1984, opting instead to seek the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat being vacated by the retiring John Tower. Hance announced within hours of Tower's withdrawal that he would run for the Senate. He was very narrowly defeated—by only 273 votes—by State Senator Lloyd Doggett of Austin, who was later a long-term Democratic congressman. Hance had received a great deal of support from conservative Republicans who crossed party lines to vote for him in the race, since Hance had run on a conservative platform. Hance proceeded to endorse Doggett in the general election, which rankled many of the conservative Republicans who had crossed party lines to vote for him. Doggett went on to lose to Republican nominee Phil Gramm. Geography also played a role in Hance's loss to Doggett; with exception of Lyndon Baines Johnson, no one from west of San Antonio has ever represented Texas in the U.S. Senate. Hance was succeeded in the U.S. House by a young Republican, Larry Combest, a former aide to Tower.

Hance switched parties from Democratic to Republican in 1985. In 1986, he unsuccessfully sought the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Instead, the Republicans called former Governor Bill Clements out of retirement for the right to challenge Democratic Governor Mark White. In 1988, Hance was a Texas delegate to his first ever Republican National Convention, which met in New Orleans.

In 1988, Hance was elected as a Republican to the commission on the coattails of presidential nominee George H.W. Bush, the father of George W. Bush whom Hance had defeated in the 1978 election for the 19th Congressional District. He left the Railroad Commission in 1990, once again to seek the Republican nomination for governor but was heavily defeated in the primary by controversial Midland businessman Clayton Williams. In the primary against Williams, Hance finished second but with only 15 percent of the ballots.

On May 1, 2011, Texas Tech University announced that Kent Hance provided the largest gift, $1.75 million, toward the $3 million privately funded non-denominational campus chapel, named the Kent R. Hance Chapel.[3]

In 1985, Hance received the Texas Tech Alumni Association Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2009, Hance received the South Plains Council Boy Scouts of America John F. Lott Distinguished Citizen Award. In 2009-2010, Hance received the Outstanding Texas State Leader Award at the Annual Texas Leadership Forum, presented by the John Ben Shepperd Public Leadership Institute. Additionally, Hance received the Hope Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society West Texas Chapter in April 2010.

After raising $1.69 billion in funds for Texas Tech, Hance announced on October 13, 2013, that he will step down as chancellor at some time in 2014. The regents voted to name him chancellor-emeritus upon his retirement. His contract expires in December 2013 but he will continue in the position for an undetermined number of months thereafter. Hance has residences in both Austin and Lubbock.[1]